


Mercenaries, All Alike

by orphan_account



Series: Overwatch Protocol 63 [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: And like, F/F, In Hindsight, Overwatch 63, PS, PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Protocol 63, Rule 63, are like on the spot, constructive criticism & comments appreciated, fuckboy-ing is not, hope you guys enjoy it, i also dont care so, i dunno, i love gender swapped stuff, i tried my best but a bunch, im sorry if its bad but, just trying something new is all, please dont hold it against me, poor jackie, she got it so bad, sorry about names, who gives a fuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-10-31 11:05:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10898040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Mercs tend to be avoided by Overwatch if at all possible. But it's time to make an exception.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry but this just would not get out of my head. I hope you like it, I personally just like genderswapping the HELL out of everything because so many of the things I enjoy are male-centric. So. This kinda helps me get my lesbian out. Thank you for reading, btw, and I'll most likely continue genderswap fics of varying ships and plots, always with the tag 'Protocol 63' (hehe im so creative not). This one's gonna be mostly centered on 63'ed Reaper: 76 and some McHanzo (or McHaruko, whichever) so have faith! Or don't. I wouldn't be upset XD

"What, you expect me to let her waltz through here and destroy the place? Kill all of us in our sleep?"  
"Jack, please. This is serious. We're low in numbers since we're operating under the table. If we can get her on, then we can-"  
"Amir, no. I'm not going to risk everyone's safety just to hire one gun."  
"No Jack, you're too scared of what's going to happen if she walks in and doesn't immediately pull her gun on you." Jesse was hesitant to listen, but she had a feeling that if it was getting Amir and Jack out of sorts, then maybe it'd be worth catching some intel on. She'd removed the dumbass spurs on her boots that everyone had insist she wear since her Blackwatch days in preparation for a quiet night in her new quarters, but she'd managed to catch a little snippet of the conversation currently ongoing between the two old leaders of Overwatch. It sounded like it was a big deal, so of course she kept right on listening. It felt a little dirty, yeah - what didn't these days?

"Jack, please. This is about more than your silly grudge." Jesse heard chairs sliding and was about to hightail it out when it suddenly stopped. Probably Amir trying to settle old Jackie. She was easily unsettled anymore, which Angel attributed to Jack's likely depression and PTSD. He'd not had a chance to properly diagnose Jack, but at this point most people wouldn't argue that something was wrong with old Jackie. She was just...different. Not like they hadn't expected it, those that had known Jack before the Soldier: 76 getup. It took years to even see each other again, much less get this new Overwatch together. Ever since Winona had hit the recall, everyone had been scrambling after new potential recruits. Which was actually the subject of Jack and Amir's discussion, from what Jesse could gather. They were talking about hiring some mercenary, but something had Jack spooked. And mentally ill or not, anything that scared Jackie would scare everyone else, too. "It was never about grudges, Amir. It was...something else." The chairs were moving again. Jesse took this as her cue to leave.

She was perfectly quiet in her escape until, somehow, she ran face-first into one of the aforementioned new recruits, Aika's older sister Haruko. Who Jesse...may or may not have the hots for. Certainly didn't help that she was half-naked almost everywhere she went. "O-oh, hey there darlin'!" Her typical ice-cold stare was the only response. "Uh... Hello to you too, sweetheart," Jesse jokingly added, grinning to some effect. "Hello cowgirl," was Haruko's deadpan reply. "What have you been doing sneaking around?" The taller woman let out a bit of a chuckle that sounded more forced than she meant it to. "Who says I've been sneakin', now? Can't say ya don't trust me, darlin'."  
"You don't have those detestable noise-makers on your feet. You only do that when you want to sneak around." Crap. Fuckin' spurs. Always causing trouble. Jesse lifted the front of her hat up to run a hand through her dark chestnut locks. "Well you see-"  
"Jesse."

The cowgirl made the most undignified squeal imaginable, all but leaping into Haruko's arms. She seemed to almost expect it though, because she was ready to push Jesse back upright without a word. Something looked off when she glanced at Haruko. Wait...was that a smile?! Jesse couldn't get a good look since she had to turn and face whoever had the indecency to spook her so (God damn it!). It was only Amir. Didn't make things any better, but Amir would be nice enough to keep it to himself. "Sorry 'bout that, sir," she mumbled, pulling her hat down to cover her burning face. "Didn't quite see ya there." The man chuckled, wrinkles crinkling at the corners of his eyes. "No worries Jesse. You two take care tonight." The elder man was starting to turn down the hall when he stopped, turning back to the two women. "Shimada, McCree. You two wouldn't mind if I had to drag you off for an off-beat mission with me and Dr. Ziegler for a few days, would you?" Jesse's stomach was flipping and leaping more than a cricket in a grain store. Even if it was just a few days, it was a few days relatively alone with Haru... "Yessir, I'd be right fine with that." The impending silence made Jesse feel like she'd answered perhaps a mite too quickly. "I would be honored to accompany you," Haruko gracefully added, deeply bowing per her custom. Ohh, it took everything of Jesse's willpower to keep from scooping up Haruko right then and there. The utter amount of willpower, plus the fact that Haruko had promised to break her jaw if McCree had ever tried something like that again. To avert her gaze, Jesse fiddled with the brim of her hat, whatever it was was just too important.

"Alright then. I'll tell you two when I get around to the precise date of the mission. Until then, just assume it's sometime soon." Jesse was still adjusting her hat even as her old captain made his way down the hall to his room. Haruko cleared her throat, shooting a wary glance towards the American. She caught the stare and tipped her hat back with a grin. "What's that, darlin'? Scared of old Amari there?"  
"Decidedly not."

\- - - - - - - -

"This is a waste of time," Jack muttered under her breath. She'd finally agreed (begrudgingly) to go with Amir to meet up with the mercenary (God, the name was too disgusting to even think) in the run-down industrial park they were currently standing in (detestable); though she'd made sure that everyone knew what a bad idea it was to consider hiring mercenaries in the first place. Angel had a hard time focusing, somehow enthralled in the hem of his Valkyrie suit. Haruko was positioned further up, where her bow was far more effective, which in turn, made McCree drag her feet. She'd hoped to have an excuse to be _closer_ to Haruko, not further away. Amir and Jack kept each other busy by mumbling words to one another when they started to get anxious. 

McCree heaved a sigh, almost itching to light up a cigarillo for herself. She always had one on hand, but Jack and Amir had already gotten onto her about it once today, right before they'd left. Not that she disagreed with them, of course. Smoke definitely wouldn't be good for stealth. Then again, neither would these fucking spurs! 

Mustering up an annoyed tone, McCree turned to where Jack was bickering with Amir. "No offense, Jack," she drawled, "but if it's such a waste, what's the use'a bein' here in the first place?" Something about the expression spreading over Amir's face told her that the comment was a little unnecessary. "McCree, go check on Haruko. Make sure she still has clear sight on our area." Jesse was huffing a little. Questioning one of the best marksmen apart from Amir himself (it may or may not have also had something to do with the fact that Jesse was certain that Haruko was some kind of god in human form but hey). Only after Jesse was stomping away did she think about if it was just a way to get rid of her. "Kids," Amir mumbled, nudging Jack in the ribs. "Don't change, do they?"  
"That one sure doesn't," Jack grumbled, though not unpleasantly. "At least she knows what she's doing." Amir glanced down at the handheld comm device to check the time. It was 1723. When was she planning on showing up?

The question was answered as a black swirl placed a body directly in front of Amir and Jack. "Took you long enough," growled the former Strike Commander. "Took you two long enough to figure out if I'm hired or not," Reaper retorted sharply. She didn't mind trading blow for verbal blow. A slight breeze managed to push its way between the buildings, into the alley. It made Reaper's red-tipped hair billow out on either side of the expressionless mask. "Reaper," Amir announced rather stiffly, "I'm glad to tell you you've been accepted into Overwatch." Reaper snickered, crossing her arms over her leather-bound chest. "Accepted, is it? Funny, I'd think I'd have a free pass after all I've done." The other two leaders let the comment slide, allowing Amir to continue, though Jack was starting to go stiff. "While you are engaged in Overwatch's activity, we expect you to abide by the rules. _Our_ rules," he forcifully stated, as if the first time wasn't enough. "I'll gladly debrief you later, but for now we want to let Dr. Ziegler look you over in case-"  
"The only reason you brought Mercy," Reaper quickly interrupted, waving her talons towards the medic, "is because you were afraid I'd start a firefight. I can't tell if I'm disappointed or impressed." Jack had her rifle in a white-knuckled grip, and she was glad that her gloves didn't let it show. Reaper wasn't scary, wasn't intimidating. She was just...a bad, bad memory. One that Jack didn't want. One she wanted to be rid of. 

Up in the safety of an old parking garage, Haruko kept her eye trained on the foursome below. She'd been instructed to shoot to kill if anything should go wrong, as well as watch for Talon agents nearby. So far, nothing. At the slight clinking of metal, the tip of her arrow was pointed directly at Jesse's throat, barely two inches away from the skin. "What is it, Jesse?" snapped Haruko, turning back to the situation in the alley. "Sorry darlin', just got told to come check up on ya. Guess they thought you wouldn't mind the company." Some days, Haruko just wished she had the decency to break Jesse's jaw already. She was sweet, sure, but there was just no room for romance in this work. It never ended well. Haruko knew from experience. 

"So... How's it look?" With an exasperated sigh, Haruko tore her sight away from the negotiation again. "Perhaps you should go back down there and see for yourself."  
"But I wanna stay up here with my purty dragon. Everyone needs their number two, eh?" Why did Aika have to introduce the cowgirl to her? It was so...Haruko didn't know the proper word for it, but it was something. Her eyes were about to roll out of her sockets at just how horribly flirtatious Jesse was trying to be. Deep, deep down in the pit of her mind, Haruko really didn't mind. It used to be just Aika who got the romantic attention, always bringing someone home to mess with, while Haruko had to stand straight, keep her gaze forward, and never even think about straying from the path her family chose for her. No distractions, lest the yakuza tradition of the Shimada fall into dishonor. But Jesse? Always attempting to flirt or get her attention... It might've made up for denying herself all those years of being young. 

The comm link came online with Angel's voice. "Haruko? Is Jesse still up there with you?" McCree took the call from her link, tapping the ear piece a little more than was necessary. "McCree here. What're ya after, Angel?"  
"We want you down here. Quickly. Amir and Jack are working out negotiations with the mercenary and they want you down here for support." On the inside, Jesse was trying to find a way to get out of it, but her gut response got to her mouth first. "No problem, Doc. Gonna be down there quick as I can." Loathe to do it as she was, McCree knew better than to drag her feet for this. "S'pose I'll see ya when we get back to base, Haru?" She didn't allow herself to dignify the inquiry with a response. Not that it mattered to Jesse. She'd gotten used to Haruko's silence whenever she spoke to her. "Refrain from being killed before I have the chance, McCree." The cowgirl screeched to a stop in the threshold of the doorway. Did...did Haruko just say not to die? Jesse chuckled, tipping her hat to the archer with a silly grin plastered over her features. "I'll do my best, _mi dragón encantador_." 

Haruko somehow let her lips twitch upwards in a soft smile. Cowgirl and her sweet nothings...

"You wouldn't be able to stop me if I were so inclined," Reaper kept up, eyes flitting towards Angel as he backed away. "Even with your archer and McCree. Just count yourselves lucky I don't feel up to a murder spree just yet." Jack could just _feel_ the grin that was under the mask. She wanted to rip it off. Bash it against that stupid, smug face until she was truly unrecognizable. "Well? What's stopping you, Reaper?" It slipped out. Jack didn't like to play the golden child anymore. Not when it came to situations like this. Reaper barked a mirthless laugh. "Nothing, really. I just don't feel like it." She hummed for a moment before disappearing in a cloud of black. Jack swung around immediately, expecting an attack from behind. It was only Jesse behind her, but the ex-soldier nearly shot anyway. "Shit, what happened to the merc?"  
"I just thought you'd want to even the playing field." Jesse had her revolver out before she turned. There were a few wisps of black left on Haruko, but it didn't matter to her, tightening her grasp on her bow like it was her lifeline. "Only fair."  
"Enough of the games, Reaper," Jack growled, rifle now trained on the black-swathed assassin. "Are you coming with us back to Gibraltar or not?"

Reaper huffed. "If I wasn't going to, why'd I bother coming out here?" It was said with finality. Nobody questioned it, even if Jesse felt like keeping her body mass between Reaper and Haruko the whole way to the transport, then again as they flew back to the new base. Reaper was also strangely quiet. Amir had expected her to poke at Jack, tease McCree, something. But instead she was silent, kept her claws to herself, only occasionally glancing at Jesse, and otherwise staring at nothing. That didn't keep the five agents of Overwatch from being on edge.

\- - - - - - - -

"These will be your quarters, Reaper." Angel waved his hand at the door in front of them. He scribbled at something on his tablet, then looked up again at the cold mask. "I'm going to need you to report to me at 0800 tomorrow morning for a mandatory examination. I won't ask you to remove anything," he added quickly, noting how Reaper's shoulders seemed to straighten out, "but I just want to make sure that you're healthy, and not at risk for any bacterial infection or the like. Is that...alright?" She nodded silently and glided into the room. It was sterile, small, but liveable. Likely also on lockdown after hours. Perhaps it shouldn't have surprised her to think it. 

Angel stood at the door way, brushing a strand of blonde hair from his forehead. Reaper was unsettling to most, Angel included; it did, however, make her feel a little proud how Jesse kept up her composure through the whole flight and landing. Still an arrogant little shit. "Anything else, Doctor?" Reaper growled. "No, just... Making sure you're comfortable."  
"You're a horrible liar, Angel. Go on, tell Jack how I'm plotting to kill all of you in your sleep. It'll make her feel better, I'm sure." Not likely. Angel held firm, watching closely as Reaper inspected every inch of the room. It was the standard for the base - the room was about twelve feet by twelve, taken up by a full bed covered with a blue-gray comforter and two decidedly substandard white pillows, a black dresser to the side of it, and a small night stand. There was a joined bathroom along with the rest, but it was cramped and small. The setup was definitely more akin to SEP than Blackwatch Commander. Maybe Jack and Amir had done that on purpose, though. She wouldn't have put it past them.

"Angel. You're still watching." The medic gulped, quickly nodding before he turned on his heel and left. At least having a room was going to be a decent improvement. Even if being watched at all hours was going to be tiresome.


	2. Chapter 2

Sleep was not something Reaper enjoyed. More often than not, all it did was make her more fatigued instead of less with the plague of old memories biting into her conscious thought. She stayed awake that first night, pacing around the room, counting and recounting her steps, even daring to let her cloak dissipate from her body. Everything else stayed on, but without the hood, Reaper's dark hair fell loosely around her shoulders. Once upon a time, it'd been a frizzy puff of dark curls, something she'd loved to mess with in the mornings. Something had made it go eternally straight, though. Oddly enough, she was thankful for it. One less reminder of how things used to be. 

A glance at the digital clock on the nightstand read 0458. About three hours before she had to go meet with Dr. Ziegler. Without much else to do, Reaper ghosted through the cracks of the door, intending to explore the new base at her own whim. Something made her aim towards the main entrance, most likely where dignitaries, sympathizers, and other such important fucks came in to wave their allegiance about like it was something to be proud of. The thought made her lightly chuckle. An alliance with Overwatch was just making more enemies, some that were even sponsored by governments if not governments themselves. It was why Reaper didn't particularly care for being hired by them or not. More enemies meant more kills. More kills meant more feeding. And more feeding was _never_ bad.

When she got to the outer wall of the base, the assassin stopped. Something in her gut ached to tear off her leather and then hurdle off around the base. The old soldier in her. The damn thing craved structure, exercise, to be pushed like it once was. Not likely. The constant building and destruction of her cells kept her from getting overweight or otherwise unhealthy, so there was no use in exercise. All it did was uselessly tire her out. Regardless, the desire was there. And she almost did. But as Reaper started to reach for the straps that held everything in place, an all-too-familiar face rounded a corner with a small duffel slung over her shoulders. Jack stopped as soon as her visor locked onto Reaper's mask. They stared at one another for what felt like hours. Reaper didn't feel inclined to move, though she stopped trying to unstrap her protective layers. Jack didn't want to get any closer to Reaper than she really had to. 

One thing that Reaper didn't care to hide or stop herself from doing was raking her gaze over Jack's body. She was still as fit as she had been back in the SEP, lithe and strong. A perfect soldier girl body that had fit into the Strike Commander uniform like it was made just for her (in retrospect it probably was). Reaper had never had nor wanted that kind of body. She was a few inches taller, but her muscles were thicker. A bit more of a brawler than Jackie, to say the least. Pushing her focus past the visor, behind which Reaper knew were two beautifully glowing sea blue eyes, she noted that Jack didn't have her silvery-white hair in the usual braid. Funny. That used to be all she ever saw of Jack's head. In public, anyway. Instead, it seemed to be in a plain ponytail. The girlish look just did _not_ do Jackie any favors. 

Jack was stiffening up, perhaps sensing that Reaper wouldn't leave, then abruptly turned, stalking back the way she came. _Figures_ , Reaper growled in her mind, _She never knew how to stand her ground for more than a minute or two, did she?_

Left again with naught to do but twiddle her clawed thumbs, Reaper went along the base's perimeter, carefully noting possible entrances and exits, sensors and security measures. When she came back to her starting point, the same duffel that Jack had been carrying was laying on the ground. She itched to dig around in it, see what all Jack had prepared for, but that would indicate that she cared about what Jack did. Heh. Jack... Reaper still preferred it to that bile-inducing French name, Jacqueline Morrison. Eugh. After a few years with Widowmaker, Reaper was tired of French, both in accent and in tongue. Not that her own name was much more appealing. Gabriel Reyes... How many times had she written her name as a kid and still nearly everyone pronounced it wrong? Looked at her like she was a freak of nature. Then the same explanation she'd had to give since she was five - "It's Ga-bri-EL, not Ga-briel." - even in the military she'd had to do that, always at the risk of getting pummeled. Oh yeah, she'd gotten wailed on plenty in her days of the Army. Before SEP, when she became the commander. Then it was funny to watch kids squirm while she had to determine duties and punishments and... 

And then it all faded into nothing. Always that blank spot, between promotion to CO and Overwatch. She had no clue why it was there, but it was likely due to the Crisis. That was the good go-to answer. Right time period, right reasons, right place. Whatever the reason for that blank spot, Reaper no longer cared. She stared off at where she'd come from, expecting Jack to come running any moment. It was rather tempting to just sit there and tease Jackie, make her come to a burning, screeching halt just because she didn't want to leave. 

There was a buzz from down below. Reaper glanced down at Jack's handheld communicator to see that Amir had sent her a written message.  
**0549  
** Amir: _Jack as soon as you're done, get to conference room 3B. It's classified, so no worming out of this_  
Jack? Squeeze out of a meeting with Amir? She missed this already. Instead of waiting to mess with Jack like she wanted to, Reaper wraithed her way along, floating as mist along the ground towards nowhere in particular. Like the military urge to start her day with exercise, she naturally found herself at the training range. It wasn't like she would mind practicing with bots. The same panel for the bots was there as it had been all those years ago. Reaper turned the bot intensity, AI, tactics, and mobility all up to max. She doubted that it would push her much, though. Bots never did. The overhead speaker flared to life with a masculine voice. "Reaper, it is good to make your acquaintance. I am Athenos, the resident Artificial Intelligence program of Overwatch. Before you begin, are you quite sure you want the drones to perform as effectively as-"  
"Just let them go. The sooner they break, the sooner they'll get fixed."  
"Suit yourself. Drones releasing in t-minus 5 seconds. Four, three, two, one. Drones released."

Reaper materialized her shotguns, holding them loosely at her sides while she waited for the robots. They came racing in on all sides, blasters firing right for her chest. The assassin easily ducked away from each projectile, practically dancing with the things as they tried swarming, rushing, stealth, everything in their AI that was some kind of battle strategy. It didn't take long for Reaper to grow tired of playing with them. The very minute one got within a few meters, she snapped the muzzle of her shotgun level to its core processor in the middle of where a human's chest would be, and fired at point-blank. Needless to say, the bot fell like it'd never lived. It was only a robot, not even an omnic, so the usual rush that came with a kill was rather subdued. In spite of that, the drones were being quickly dispatched. First one fell, then two, then five, then ten. Reaper was everywhere at once, shooting off blast after blast to obliterate each drone. They still continued an attempt to assault as per their programming, but they each fell like dust when Reaper was finally done. She was huffing a little as she hunted the last drone. It was a sneaky little shit, one that had been proving difficult from the first moment Reaper saw it.

Each of the drones had a coded designation on their metal shells. This one was δ-26, and it was a crafty son of a bitch. Some - namely Torbja - might argue that it was a newly budding omnic, but Reaper didn't care. Let the omnic bit wait a little longer to come into itself. Reaper turned a corner, both shotguns raised to confront the drone, but she was met with empty floor. The main floor. She twisted, but before she could fire, an arrow lodged itself directly in δ-26's cranium. The light of its optics flickered before it went out entirely, dropping to the floor in a heap of metal. 

The assassin turned, growling low, to see Haruko standing near the entry, bowstring still twanging from the loosed arrow. "I had it, thank you," Reaper grumbled, ridding herself of her guns. Haruko lowered her weapon but said nothing to the black-clothed woman. She'd only assisted with the final kill to make herself known. "Why are you here?" Haruko queried, brow raising in suspicion. Reaper had so far proven herself to be a bit of a trickster, so Haruko was waiting for an excuse to attack. "I could ask the same of you," was the offered reply. "If a warrior cannot be persuaded to hone their sword, then the warrior is useless. You seem to understand this well." Was that a compliment? It was hard to tell.

"Right. As you were, then." Haruko could've bristled at that. Speaking to her like this mercenary had owned the facility was an indignation that toed the line a little too much. The helpful distraction McCree tore her away from murderous thoughts as she came down the hall, a little red in the face from running. "H-hey darlin'! Sorry, got caught up by ol' gal Jack on the way." The barest hint of a smile graced Haruko's features. Jesse was downright sweet when she was flirting. Even when she wasn't, she was quite the admirable person. The cowgirl caught sight of Reaper and was instantly shoved from her giddy morning high. The assassin, it seemed, had not quite made it into McCree's good graces. To keep up some semblance of a good image, though, McCree forced a smile. "Howdy to you, Reaper." She hummed, cloak coalescing over her shoulders as she started out. Jesse huffed, cheeks puffing out slightly at Reaper's departure. "Already startin' to get crawlies 'cuz of that woman," she mumbled to Haruko as the assassin made her way out. "I don't got a good feelin' about her." Haruko gave a curt nod in agreement. "She concerns me as well. Her method of training is..." Haruko looked out at the near-field of downed drones, not likely to recover themselves until the engineers decided to come take a look. Or even the Bastion unit. That particular omnic was always trying to do something with the drones when it could.

McCree was still chattering as she walked off, muttering about "dumb broke drones gettin' broke by dumb Reaper can't even lemme have five seconds alone with my Haru..." Sighing, the archer made to follow when she was pinned to the wall with a strong arm on her throat. Reaper apparently hadn't left. "Let me get something straight for you, Shimada," Reaper growled, tipping her mask up to flash her unnaturally red eyes and bright teeth, "Toy with Jesse, and you'd better hope that you don't find yourself alone in a dark room." She flashed a predatory grin before lowering her mask back down to conceal her face once more. 

Dark eyes locked onto the bone white mask. Reaper was not something that Haruko found frightening. Idle threats were idle threats. The only thing that was even mildly concerning was how suddenly protecting she was of Jesse. When she'd suddenly appeared behind her in the old garage then teleported down to the awaiting group, Reaper had seemed like most mercenaries. Interested in killing, in personal gain, and nothing more. She had done nothing to indicate any kind of past relationship or interest in anyone there. But now Jesse? The thought of a cold-blooded mercenary such as Reaper having her sights on McCree - whether it be romantically or strictly job-wise - got a fluttery feeling in Haruko's stomach that was most unwelcome. Reaper grunted in what could only be self-approval as she faded away. Jesse was back as soon as Reaper left. "Sorry darlin', didn't mean to leave without'cha but - Haru?"

Haruko wouldn't stop glaring at the one small spot int eh floor where black smoke still wavered. "Haru? Hey, you all in here, doll?" The silence that pervaded the room after Jesse's gentle prodding was more than just the archer's typical indifference. It was, instead, incredibly unsettling. "Haru?" Jesse tried again, hesitantly waving a hand in the general direction Haruko was facing. It worked, jolting the woman from her trance-like state. "You up for breakfast?" Even after being taken away from her thousand-yard stare, it took several long moments for Haruko to acknowledge the question. "Yes. Yes, I... I will accompany you." 

Reaper fled through the base, trying room after room until she came into the infirmary. Before solidifying, she positioned herself on one of the medical beds, looking as if she were yet another leather-clad soldier ready for a physical. With a penchant for death-like aesthetic, of course. As odd as it was, Reaper remembered that this piece had been part of her even before getting caught in the explosion. Even back before the military, before the SEP, she'd always been doodling skulls on her math homework, spraying graffiti of hooded specters bringing death when she got really bored. Those were always the most fun. It had always been 'go big or go home' with the sprays, so the death-like reapers were always larger-than-life; the assassin remembered fondly hanging around by some of her monstrous paintings and watching passerby stare in horror before rushing away like it was some kind of tangible threat. That also made her feel especially vain about her successful public image. How easily just uttering her name made people jerk in panic.

Angel opened the door silently, looking quite bedraggled until he caught sight of Reaper. Then he quickly assumed his happy, patient doctor smile, tablet held close to his side. "Reaper, very punctual. Better than half of my patients already." Angel was always one to flatter. The black-swathed killer just let it slip by, unnoticed as the good doctor prepared the machinery next to the bed. "Okay then, while I won't ask you to unclothe very much, I will need some skin for an arm and...ah, _Meine Fresse_ , how could I be so flighty?" This last portion was muttered to himself. "I'm sorry to go back on my word from last night, but I'll only need you to expose your mouth for a moment so that I may swab your cheek. Is that...too much?" 

Rather than letting herself respond, Reaper lifted her mask just enough to expose her mouth. "I suppose not," the medic mumbled to himself, performing the simple swab immediately. "I don't know if you can properly bleed, based off what my files have, but-"  
"Files?" Oh. Um...oops. "Yes," Angel tentatively replied, turning to face his old coworker. "I don't know how much you remember. But...oh." His stomach felt like it was about to invert just from looking at the smallest bit of uncovered flesh. The smoky wisps coming off it here and there were one thing, but Angel didn't want to venture further than that. "I feel sorry to be the one to tell you, but I suppose it's what I deserve. I'm the one who made you...well. I'm what gave Reaper the power it needed to take over. I'll leave it at that."  
"No you won't." The blonde started as Reaper slid off the medical bed and stalked towards the doctor. "What did you do?"  
"I-it was a mistake, Gabriel. I never intended this, I swear. Please, I... It was experimental technology." Angel kept on babbling as he called for Jack on his handheld, silently hoping that she'd be here relatively quickly. "I was trying to help you. After the explosion. Then you...this..."  
"Then what? You all abandoned me to rot in a ditch until Talon found me?"  
"What? No, no! Never! Gabriel, I promise you, I never meant for any of this!"

Jack burst through the door, barking a warning as soon as she saw Reaper hovering over Angel. "Reaper! Back off!" The mask was almost off now but it snapped back down once Jackie started her tirade. No use letting anyone know who she was if they had no clue. "Apologies, I was only curious as to how dear Angel had a hand in destroying your precious Gabriel. I guess I'm enough for your sick kicks, aren't I Jackie?" The words were spit from her mouth, bit by bit, like vomit. A familiar sensation began to claw at her gut when Jack took a step into the room, threatening to intervene further if she didn't back off. It was a sense that often surfaced when Reaper reminisced about who she once was, which was almost the entirety of her night and morning so far.

Guilt. At letting herself fall into this monstrosity. Nearly killing those she once loved. But just as it always did, the feeling didn't last for more than a moment. Reaper made sure of it, pushing those old thoughts down. She was Gabriel Reyes, true, but in name and body only. Nothing more.

The assassin straightened, walking back to plunk herself back down on the medical table. "Better?"  
"No."  
"I figured as much. Such the hardass, even when we weren't surrounded by dignitaries." Jack huffed, only calming slightly as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You think we're so stupid?"  
"Relatively, yes." Growling, the ex-soldier turned back to Angel, still breathing rapidly by the wall with a death-grip on his pistol. "She's fucking with us, Angel. If she gets sick, then I don't care. Let her rot." Despite a gut feeling not to, Reaper let a chuckle float out of her throat. Some days she wondered if she fed on enmity as much as the loose concept of a victim's soul. It could've just been her old habits kicking up, not that she cared. "Don't worry, I'll rot without your help, _chica de oro_. Under all this black, you monsters didn't leave me much more than a sentient corpse."

Angel covered his mouth, sharply turning to the floor. All his years as a doctor, and yet this one patient still plagued him. Then again, she was more than just another patient. This was his friend, someone he'd gladly served for years in Overwatch. He hated thinking of that day, looking over Gabriel's dead body, all the shrapnel making a bloody show of her front side, setting the nanites to work at the urging of both Jack and the UN. Just for some unknown operative to break in and take her right after the robots were done. 

Some days, Angel really felt like he could kill himself for that one moment. One shuddering breath later - no, wait, two - Angel was able to recover himself, stepping back to the table to finish with the physical examination. Even though he tried to perform the whole thing, Jack only let him draw blood and do a quick eyesight check. For all she cared, there was nothing else to be concerned about. To keep Angel from doing any more with the assassin, Jack grabbed his shoulder and began steering him out of the infirmary. "I think that'll do, Doctor. You look hungry. We should go while the food's still edible." She cast a glance back at Reaper, full of nothing but poison and daggers. It just went to show, the people that hired you were the ones that hated you most. 

\- - - - - - - -

Reaper was instantly put on a mission. The first was nothing big, and it was hard to tell if that was by coincidence or if Amir and Jack had meant for that to happen, just like the cramped, SEP-esque living space she'd been given. Along with her were Haruko, her sister Aika, a newer recruit called D.Va (he was some kind of celebrity but Reaper thought him far too cutesy for her taste), another celebrity-recruit called Lucia, and of course Jack. Something in the back of her head told her that the first month's worth of missions or so were always going to be accompanied with Amir or Jack. They were going to be wary like that because it was who they were. Reaper couldn't say that she'd do differently if she were in their shoes, but that didn't mean she was happy about it. Amir was agreeable enough that Reaper wouldn't have minded going along with him. Jack, though? Both women wanted to rip each other's throats out the first time an opportunity presented itself, so it was an altogether unpleasant experience, this first mission. 

They were just escorting some foreign dignitary, though at the moment they were stopped. There were three checkpoints to go through, and they'd just barely gotten to the first when Jack had been asked to talk with said dignitary. It didn't sit well for anyone. Of course, it also didn't help when a random shout of "Get them!" was sent echoing through the wide street the escort was passing through. Reaper was the first to go to action, sliding behind the ambush's front line to instead start taking them down from the back.

The first to fall from a load of buckshot screamed in pain. They died in another few seconds, by which time Reaper was beginning to circle around the whole group, firing off shot after shot. It was mostly to distract the lot from D.Va's cannons, firing rapidly to fell whoever decided to get in his line of sight. Aika was flanking the ambush opposite of Reaper, flinging trios of shurikens to continue teasing them. Several turned on the cyborg, screaming the old-fashioned racist nonsense as they attempted firing on her. It gave the perfect opportunity to finish them off, and the group was quickly dispatched. The last body dropped in a lifeless heap at Reaper's feet, still twitching through it's last vestiges of life. Just to put the thing out of its misery, the assassin brought her boot down on the assailant's skull which gave way with a sickening crack. It erupted into a splatter of blood, bone, and brain matter. As the rest of the escort moved along, Reaper stayed behind to indulge herself, feeding off the fresh kills as if she had been starving. In truth, she had been. It'd been a little while since she fed last, so this was just to recharge until the next group of idiots decided to jump them. 

The more she fed, the easier it was to hold her smoky form, so why not just top herself off while she had the chance? In her wake was a battlefield of shriveled white corpses. Reaper felt what could only be described as gorged. It made it that much easier to catch up to the escort, where, of course, Jackie was waiting for her. Why would she not? Glancing over her shoulder for a brief second, Jack motioned for Reaper to follow her into an inconspicuous alley. She turned on the mercenary as soon as they were out of view of the rest of the escort, chest heaving with ragged breaths. "You need to leave."  
"I'm sorry, Jack, I didn't ask to be part of this mission. Believe it or not, that honor belongs to you and-"  
"No, you aren't leaving the mission. You can't be within eight hundred feet of the vehicle. The dignitary recognized you. He asked and I said that you were with us, but he also said that he has snipers looking down at us. That they'll shoot you if you don't stay out of range." 

Reaper snorted a laugh, but turned anyway, sauntering down the alley. "Sounds a lot like a certain blonde girl scout I once knew," she yelled over her shoulder.

\- - - - - - - -

It was all just the same to Reaper. She even preferred it, ghosting around to take out more would-be saboteurs as they attempted to set themselves up, far from the main escort. It was a much larger group than the assassin had initially anticipated, eventually killing upwards of six or seven dozen. The worst part? They weren't even hard to take down on her own. There was no dignitary to protect, so she was free to kill as she wished. And she did just that, firing off blasts, roaring her glee to the wind for everyone within a mile to hear. Oh, if only Talon could see her now. They'd probably wish they hadn't waved her off after one mishap.

Perhaps that was why she'd offered at all, though. Show Talon that to dismiss Reaper was to dismiss death itself, and that was a mistake that nobody would dare make again. Due to her quick elimination of the rebels, resistance, whatever the hell they were, the escort didn't stop again the whole way to the third checkpoint, a city out on the western border of Germany. Orca awaiting, the team tramped into the quarters minus D.Va, who was parking his mech in the cargo hold. Jack looked from the empty space of the transport to the outside city then back again. It gnawed at her, having to leave Reaper to her own devices, just trusting that she wouldn't kill anyone important or jeopardize the mission somehow. "Miss me, Jackie?" The soldier whirled, startled by the sudden appearance of the assassin in question lounging against the wall. "Where the hell were you?" Jack growled as the Orca began to prepare for takeoff. 

"Doing my job. Thanks to me, your precious escort stopped once, rather than fifteen times." D.Va, who'd lightly stepped in as the door to the ship was beginning to close, cocked his head. "Fifteen? There couldn't have been that many," Lúcia interjected, trying to diffuse the obvious tension. "Tell that to my kill count," Reaper replied smugly. Just to prove it to dear Jackie, she undid the clasps on her gauntlets and let it loose, just to dissipate before it could hit the floor. That hand. It was so familiar, so perfect, so...

Attached to a heartless monster that would sooner kill her than touch her like that again. Right. "What am I looking at?" "You notice, old woman, that my skin is pretty dark?" She wasn't trying to add salt to the wound, but Lúce sidled up and held her arm out for comparison. True to her word, Reaper had dark skin, but Jack still didn't know nor care why it was important. "So?" God fuck. "I was paler before we left. You noticed it, didn't you Jackie." Not a question. A statement. A thinly veiled attempt at calling her out on just how much looking she'd done towards Reaper since she got on base.

Rather than letting Reaper have her laugh, Jack stayed silent, flexing her fingers under the thick black gloves. "Maybe I did," she muttered, all but defeated. What did she care, though? Any semblance of dignity she'd once had was long gone, replaced with bitter resignation to her fate as an old soldier. Just giving Reaper what she wanted would most likely get her to drop it quicker, so for now, Jack just went along with it. 

"You're pathetic, Morrison." It made Jack snap. She was okay with games to toy with her head, she was okay with passing hits and shoves, but those three words... _You're pathetic, Morrison._ No. No, no, no, this wasn't happening. Not right now. Jack sank into the nearest seat, pulse rifle falling into her lap. Gabi. She wasn't like this. Reaper was. Oh god, oh hell, not like this, not again...

Please not again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning, there's some nudity (nothing sexual, you naughty persons, for shame) and mentions/flashbacks to alcohol abuse just in case that's not cool with anybody. I won't put those in the tags unless they become prominent things in this fic, but I don't think they will.

“Jack, I took Blackwatch because I wanted to help people. These things I’m doing? They’re to make sure that whoever is at fault is going to stick us in the right direction before we shove them in a hole. We make sure that your ass stays pretty.” Jack ran a hand over her face, already itching to grab a drink of some kind to relieve herself of the conversation. Alcohol poisoning be damned. Angel had warned her against drinking as much as she had been recently, but the stress of work coupled with Gabi’s newfound enmity was really getting to her. They’d stopped their bedroom visits entirely at this point because the Blackwatch Commander kept getting rougher and more violent, to the point that, even though it’d been a few weeks since their last fuck, there were still bruises fading on Jack’s limbs and throat. Those had been the real anxiety-relievers, and when Jack lost them, she was pushing more alcohol in her system to make up for it. “Gabriel, I’m not saying you don’t do anything for us. All I’m saying is that you’re getting too harsh, too volatile with these interrogations. Jesse came to me yesterday about it.” The commander scoffed, looking away without moving her hands from the edge of Jack’s perfect desk so she wouldn’t crush Jack’s perfect face in Jack’s perfect office because of Jack’s perfect public image of Jack’s perfect Overwatch. “So what?”  
“So what? Gabi, this is Jesse. I. E., McCree, ex-Deadlock member. If Jesse has a problem with it, then you need to take a step back and think.”  
“About what, Morrison?! You told me to do this! The UN told me to do this! What the hell else do you want from me?!”

Gabriel slammed her palms back on the desk, mouth twisted into a deep snarl. She was getting sick of this tug-of-war that Jack insisted on. The constant back and forth about her interrogations, it was getting old. First one thing, then the opposite, then back the other way, God damn, it was hell! It was getting to be downright idiotic. Jack, heartbeat slowly picking up speed as the conversation wore on, stayed silent to give Gabriel time to cool. “Well?!” She roared, leaning forward to loom over her fellow commander. “Reyes,” the Strike Commander uttered in a steely tone, “Get out.” A near-inhuman growl issued from Blackwatch’s commander. “Make me, _perra_.” Jack stood quickly, knocking her chair back. From the other side of the desk, Gabriel glanced up, still snarling like a dog. “Make me, _perra_ ,” Gabi repeated, teeth grinding. The blonde clopped around to the front of the desk, longcoat flaring slightly as she whipped around the side of her desk. In a quick motion, she pushed the other woman around, holding one wrist behind her back while maintaining a strong grip on her other shoulder. “One more time, Reyes. Get-”  
“Fuck off, Morrison. Fuck you and fuck your pretty perfect princess Overwatch bullshit!” Gabriel’s voice was slowly rising, which Jack was sure would be heard by anyone outside or in a nearby room. Much as she hated it, it was Gabi’s decision to be as she was.

After jerking the door open, Jack gave a hearty shove, heaving Gabriel out the door, still growling and snarling like a rabid dog. The door snapped shut, leaving the woman pounding on the door, screaming all manner of profanity in a blend of English and Spanish. “You fucking ass! Get the fuck back out here, _perra_! _¡Fuera, cobarde!_ _Puta mierda_ , fuck off!” How it broke Jack to hear that honey-sweet voice shout those awful words. Right now, she’d give anything just to hear her mumble one more _cariña_ , in that same soft lilt that she used in bed. Suddenly the cursing stopped, replaced by soft voices right outside the door. Angel? No, both voices were female. Jesse then, probably. The cowgirl often had a way of calming her commander when Gabi got hotheaded. From the inside, Jack listened as the occasional “fuck” and “I know, I know” weaseled through the door. Then the voices were gone entirely. The blonde let her forehead fall until it hit the solid mass of the door, eyes locked on the rigidity of the floor. Jesus Christ, this was getting to be so much. Too much. Jack dug around in her desk and pulled out a shot glass with a bottle of vodka. Hard liquor usually didn’t do anything for her, but two shots wouldn’t kill her. Hopefully.

 

“It’s stressful work, boss, what we do. Ya gotta cut Morrison some slack here and there.” Gabriel ignored the kid, opting to instead stare down at the midnight black swirl of coffee. The face that stared back was one that she had slowly been growing to hate. Dark half-moons were growing under her eyes, both of which were rimmed with red. Her skin had also started to pale, but it was hard to tell if that was from the endless interrogations or from mounting stress. On top of those, her dark hair was frizzy, frayed, breaking in several places, giving her a general look of unrest that was just barely hidden by her typical beanie. “Yeah, well Morrison isn’t involved in any of these interrogations. She wants to judge us from her fuckin’ high horse when she doesn’t even know what we’re doing. Why we’re doing it.” Scoffing, Gabi’s chestnut eyes roll at the thought of Jack understanding what she was doing. She took a sip of her coffee, letting the bitter taste wash over her palate like some kind of mental cleanser. “Like she’s ever known what the hell we do.”  
“Look now, I know it’s not my place, but seein’ as she’s Strike Commander-”  
“I don’t give a fuck what she is, McCree. She doesn’t get it. She won’t get it. I don’t want her to, don’t expect her to. All she has to do is keep sending us idiots to drill. If she wants to try to get into Blackwatch, then she should’ve signed up as Blackwatch instead of Strike Commander.”

Jesse cleared her throat before hastily shoving another big bite of muffin in her mouth. Anything to keep it occupied. She’d promised Amir to keep an eye on Gabi, yes, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. If anything, it was more draining to do it, always on her tail to make sure she didn’t do anything too rash. Lucky break, sure. Jack was in the opposite corner of the mess hall, the cowgirl noticed, then half-jumped when she looked back to see metal crumpling under Gabriel’s fingers. It was almost mind-boggling how strong she was some days.

“Uh…boss?” The metal’s incessant pleas finally stopped when the woman looked down. “Fuck.” That was all she apparently had to say. Fuck.

 

“Boss, you know I don’t mean disrespect to ya,” Jack heard over the comm line, “but these interrogations? They’re downright…well, they’re more like Deadlock than I’d like to admit.”  
“Your point, Jesse?”  
“My point is, I didn’t get out of Deadlock-proper just to jump back into it.” Paper was shuffling around until a hand patted wood. “I’ll be gettin’ my goods an’ leavin’.” At first, that seemed like it’d be it. Jack had stayed close because Jesse confessed her worry at Gabriel’s disposition over the past few months, how it’d gotten so much worse in so little time. But the metal clink of spurs stopped before Jesse was out of the door. “Look, boss - er, Reyes. I’m not leavin’ because I want to. I’m leavin’ because I ain’t about to watch you go down the rabbit hole. I’ve tried steerin’ ya out, so’s Amir, so’s Jack-” And then her first mistake. “Fuck Jack! What’s Morrison ever done for us?! What’s Morrison ever known about doing this? What the hell has she been doing lately? Kissing ass so she can keep up her pretty face! Fuck her!” The cussing stopped for a few solid minutes, and it appeared Gabriel was gathering herself for another launch. Instead she just quietly muttered, “Get your shit out of here in the next hour or else I’ll fucking throw it in the incinerator.”

 

Jesse had resigned over two months ago. It didn’t help in the least. If nothing else, it seemed to make Gabi worse rather than better. The interrogations were more brutal, lasting longer, and some even saw Blackwatch agents running out of the room holding their chests like they were nearly killed. Jack finally cornered her old friend as she was walking out of base for…probably a drink, all things considered, but at this point Jack wasn’t totally sure what she wasn’t willing to do anymore.

“You’re pathetic, Morrison!” Gabi shoved her, sending Jack stumbling away while she stomped away around the outside of the base. “Reyes! Gabriel! _Gabi_!” Flashes of white, yellow, orange suddenly took the place of the dark-skinned woman storming away. The last flicker Jack saw of her was a simple solid band of silver around her finger

\- - - - - - - -

Jack was shaking uncontrollably, fingers digging into her scalp while the transport moved along. She didn’t want that memory. She wanted it gone. Wanted it out, out, God damn it, out! The rest of the team ignored her little breakdown. They’d all decided to let her wear it out on her own, minus Lúcia, who took it upon herself to provide some reassurances and the occasional water bottle. All it took was a few minutes to shake it out, but even after having the pain of remembering forced out of her mind, she didn’t care to move from her curled position on the side of the transport. Let them see old woman Jack break down because of a side note from Reaper. She didn’t give a fuck about what they thought. Finally, the scene faded, just as the transport was getting ready to land. As soon as the vehicle was on the ground and the hatch opened, Jack was out, going straight to her room. Drinking was going to wait for a little while.

Reaper, on the other hand, was heading back out to the shooting range to see about the bots. Perhaps they’d gotten fixed already. Then she stopped. Why...? Her gaze slid to her right, where a wall stood. It was imposing, metal, but Reaper could see the mars left from welded pieces used to frankenstein the wall back together. What from? A bombing, probably. She was certain that Overwatch had seen at least a few of those. They had to, given their past acclaims of heroic duties and the like. But it was never above the media to lie. They'd forged and lied and crafted their perfect little story from day one, following Overwatch's movements, molding them to their pretty image of the monsters Overwatch was, then singing high praises of the 'valiant efforts' they'd gone to to protect the people of the world. The assassin would've liked to laugh, had she not been part of the organization herself. It half-killed her to not remember so much of it. Jesse, she remembered. Picking the scrawny kid out from a crowd of burly Deadlock members and kicking her ass well enough for her to know that she wouldn't be getting out of this scot-free. Same with Angel. Reaper remembered meeting him for the first time, how he'd seemed so reluctant until he was told about the casualties that could be stopped if he joined Overwatch. 

Everything else was as black as night. Just gaping holes where memories should've been. Pain began to bloom in the assassin's chest, pushing her to forego the training range in favor of somewhere else. Anywhere else. Something came to her in that moment. Broken down on the floor somewhere - an office, most likely hers - kneeling in her own vomit with a shattered bottle in her grip, mumbling, "I already lost Jack... Not Jesse, too. F-fuck, not Jesse not Jesse, no... Not my kid." A pathetic sight she remembered. One she immediately hated. Along with that horrible memory was an echoing in her head, her own voice. _I will never be good enough for anyone. No matter how hard I try._ And it seemed that she'd been right. She wasn't good enough.

Not good enough to keep Jackie close, or Jesse, or Amir. They were the few that she'd cared about. The ones she'd remembered caring about. Past that? What would be the point?

Apparently none. The memory was finally gone, and Reaper realized she'd been standing entirely still while she experienced it. Someone was waving a hand in front of her mask. "Hey, you all there, _mulher do diabo_?" Lúcia continued her verbal assault, even at the urging of D.Va to let well enough alone. She waved him off regardless of the danger. It just wasn't in her nature to be dismissive of people who needed help, whether it be Soldier or this strange death-bringer. "I'm fucking peachy," Reaper growled, making to stomp off before Lúcia grabbed her arm. "You should come eat with us! I mean, if you were tellin' the truth, you kinda took the whole mission on yourself, yeah? We don't mind, right Han?" The dazzling grin she flashed at the fellow celebrity was one that was impossible for anyone to ignore.

Minus one of the most lethal assassins the world may know. Reaper tugged her arm away from the musician, huffing as she turned away. "I don't socialize," she growled again, just to be stopped - hell, this was getting old - once more by Lúce. "Look, _camarada_ , I can understand if you're an antisocial type. We have our fair share here. But you-" She clasped her hands together, pointing both index fingers towards the cloaked woman, "-just you, took out who knows how many ambushers, even though the big guy would've preferred to see your head on a block. We gotta celebrate, _companheira_!"  
" _Niña estúpido no puede tomar una pista..._ Fine." With another overjoyed grin, Lúcia led the way to the mess hall on her brightly gleaming skates, casually rolling while she conversed with Han-jae, Reaper tailing a few feet behind. She really and truly wanted to go back to her room and rest, but she wouldn't be having this air-headed celebrity knocking on her door all night.

The mess hall was largely empty apart from the returning agents. Without Jack, but that went without saying. Haruko seemed a bit shocked to see Reaper walking in as if she were just another agent working towards the betterment of the world. Not unusual, Reaper noted with a hint of a smile beneath the owlish exterior. Aika turned to regard her in much the same manner, which stung a little more - Reaper wasn't totally sure why - though her gaze didn't linger. "'Ey! Time to put on a show!" Han and Lúcia seemed to be the party-makers, which was all fine and well to the Shimada sisters, not so much to Reaper. Celebration wasn't really her...forté. Never had been. 

Someone wandered in in the corner of Reaper's sight, just outside of her peripheral, so she swung to get a better look at the intruder. Only Jesse. In spite of that recent memory, the assassin found herself smiling as the cowgirl settled herself in next to Haruko, and Aika, taking the cue, jumped up to see about Han-jae and Lúcia's little celebration. The two celebrities welcomed the cyborg into their miniature rave, giggling like idiots while Aika attempted to fit herself in with the other two. Poorly so.

"Never took you as the party type."  
"I'm not. I was dragged here against my will."  
"Let me guess. Jesse got you with her puppy eyes because she hasn't had a wingman in years."  
"Not quite, _mi tormento_. The musician got me in here with her foreign sweet-talking."  
"Foreign?" Amir came around to stand beside his ex-coworker, pinning her with a mischievous one-eyed stare. "I'm surprised you didn't recognize it. It's close to yours."  
"I speak Spanish, _idiota_. Not Portuguese. Get it right." The old man just waved the woman off. He was more than used to her sarcasm and scathing remarks. Now they just seemed all the more comical because of her darker, more gothic attire. 

"What happened to Jack?" Reaper shrugged, crossing her arms while she carefully watched Jesse snuggle up to the Japanese archer. Unlike earlier, she seemed to not mind the American's advances. Secretive little bastard. "She got off before the damn door dropped. Don't know. Or care. If she's being hormonal, it's not my problem anymore." Amir rolled his eyes at the comment on hormones. He remembered when he first met the two super soldiers, how they always teased each other, but always Gabriel coming up with the sexist jokes that Jackie never minded. _You're such a fucking girl, Jack, what are you doing in the military? Hormones getting to you today, babe? Guess it's shark week, better stay out of the water._ Those cracks were always followed by bouts of giggling the likes of which Amir had never seen before. Not at those particular prods, and definitely not by women. He always supposed it was different between them. When he had the spare time, he had tried to crack some jokes of a similar style to Jack, but she always seemed pained by the memories they brought up, so he didn't really have any luck keeping it up. 

The sniper sighed, absently running his fingertips lightly over the stitching of his eye patch. It felt so long ago, all those days of gently bickering with the two women as they all tried to help each other out, keeping the world safe during the Omnic Crisis and then quite a while after. Before the world they were protecting turned on them, shoving a dagger into their backs. Before Jack started drinking. Before Gabi started pushing her agents to the brink of death and then some. Before the explosion. Sighing resignedly, Amir turned back to Reaper, fighting to plaster a smile on his weather-beaten face. "Have you considered talking to her? Might calm her down." The assassin snorted, black slits of her mask facing towards his single eye. "Now why would I do that, Amir? Because Overwatch's white knight can't handle herself anymore?" She barked a humorless laugh, causing most of the party to turn towards her and Amir. "Not likely. It wasn't my problem before, and it isn't now."

So much for that plan...

\- - - - - - - -

The bathtub was barely big enough for Reaper to make herself comfortable. But it was enough, for now. She waved smoky limbs above her hand, doing little things that would have been mistaken for fidgeting if the wisps of smoke weren't lingering longer than they should have. Like a painter with their brush, Reaper was giving herself a recreation of the memory she'd been hit with earlier. She didn't want it, but it was part of her anyway. The only thing to do was take it in stride, file it away in a corner of her mind where it wouldn't be retrieved from, and leave it alone. Just like her mother's funeral. And her father's brush with death because he wouldn't stop drinking. Having to tuck in her five-year-old sister at eighteen because her dad was too drunk to function. Pouring bottle after bottle down the sink until the smell of alcohol stopped bothering her and she started drinking herself. 

Darkest thoughts were pushed back the furthest. But it took enough effort to recall them the first time. So Reaper always made sure to make them again in moments of solitude like this, waving tendrils of smoke around to make the image around her, so she wouldn't forget them again. No matter how painful. 

Someone was knocking at the door. Reaper inwardly groaned, stilling herself in the hopes that the visitor would just go away, leave her in peace. Talon, at least, had the decency to leave her alone when they didn't have her out on missions. The knocking was growing faster, more insistent. Lowly growling to herself, Reaper grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her chest, then donned her mask before walking to the door. The door creaked as it opened, evidence of Reaper's utter lack of use of it, revealing Jackie standing there all pretty and still wrapped up in her Soldier: 76 uniform. Unfortunately, that was about all Reaper got before the woman turned, blush creeping down to her neck. "Jesus Christ, put some fucking clothes on you whore!"  
"It's my god damned room and I was in the bath, dipshit. What do you want?" She snapped, smoky limbs hanging at her sides. They were little manifestations she could conjure up when she was feeling really good, though they weren't often all that useful. 

Jack still didn't turn around. She stood there, lightly tapping her boot on the floor, clearly waiting for the darker-skinned woman to move first. Reaper just rolled her eyes and shut the door. If she wants to be a stubborn jackass, who cared. Certainly not Reaper. Just as she reached the threshold of the bathroom, Jack knocked on the door again. This motherfucker just would not leave her alone, would she? To give the woman some kind of consolation, Reaper materialized her cloak, hood up, with the towel underneath to keep her private areas private. Only one person other than her mother was allowed to see those bits of her, and that ass was standing outside her door like she'd never seen them before. Reaper opened the door again to face the white-haired idiot. Her blush was gone, replaced with unusually pallid skin. Jack was light, sure...but not paper white.

"Jack? What's going on?"  
"I...Amir sent me to talk to you." Typical. Even when someone said no, Amir heard yes. With a slight noise of disgust, Reaper waved her in and closed the door behind her. "So what are we talking about?" Reaper dropped the towel, starting to go about replacing her armor while her cloak concealed her nudity to Jack. "I don't know," Jack sighed in desperation, "he just said to come in here and talk to you. I don't want to, and something tells me you don't either, do you?"  
"Oh Jackie, my knight in shining armor, you know your princess so well," Reaper mocked in a high falsetto. 

For another ten minutes, Jack stood totally still while the assassin continued to dress, once again going red with the idea that Reaper was slowing the process on purpose. "Well?" The soldier's attention was snapped from a particularly interesting spot on the wall - with Gabriel far, _far_ out of her sight - back to the killer in question, now properly dressed. "Well what?" She growled in utter displeasure, hitting her palm against her mask at the poor woman's total oblivious nature. "What the hell are you going to talk about? The weather, sex, Angel's dick, what?!"  
"What?!" The most undignified squawk of a word just burst out of Jack's mouth. "Oh please. Don't look at me and say that you haven't thought about it once. You were thinking about it when we first met the poor guy. No way you haven't seen it after all this time." Was that...a note of jealousy? Was Reaper jealous at these weird, awkward, out-of-nowhere and totally unfounded accusations? Then again... It was quite in-character for Gabi. Possessive when it came to her partner.

Was that it? Residual jealousy over...whatever? No matter. It didn't matter anymore. There was no such thing as Jackie and Gabi anymore. "No. I didn't really expect you to be all that susceptible to small talk. You never were." Never were. Funny how it seemed everyone knew Gabriel Reyes than the damn woman herself. She hated not knowing so much, but she also knew she couldn't help it. Which didn't make her feel better, but little consolation was better than none. 

"Well if that's it, then get out." Jack huffed as she started out. "Gladly," she muttered under her breath. 

 

That was the last interaction that Reaper and Soldier suffered for for a while. They didn't enjoy looking at each other, avoided one another when they could, and when they couldn't, they ignored the other's presence entirely. Amir thought it so strange. Before Reaper and Solder: 76, Gabi and Jack couldn't get enough of each other. They were holding hands all the time, always touching, kissing, in contact, as if their skin breathed life into one another. He didn't know what else to do with them. They needed to get along in some degree, but this wasn't getting along, it was barely even tolerating each other. He could see the tension forming between them, and his instincts told him that he bubble was going to burst any day now.

And burst it did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote "I will never be good enough for anybody. No matter how hard I try." is from a published book, Words That Kill by Vivid Vega.
> 
> I'm also taking some liberties with Reaper hcs inspired by the fic Haunted by Trishields (great fic please read its in my book marks) and the canon lore (honestly I dont even understand how people know what Reaper's actual full name is with the one comic, like HOW????) so I'm sorry if it's diverting from canon a lot. 
> 
> A third note, if they appear at all in this fic, the omnics (Zenyatta, Orisa, Bastion) I hc as techincally genderless, so basically the only difference I see in them is that they might have more gender-specific features (ie, Zen might have more feminine clothing of the same style) and their voices would just be the opposite gender (like instead of Orisa being the happy adorable African woman, she'd be the sort-of dorky African man!)
> 
> As another side note (I know they're getting long) I'm super sorry for my use of Portuguese and Spanish in this chapter, I only have google, so if I make mistakes, please let me know so I can fix them.


	4. Chapter 4

The bubble finally burst as Reaper and Soldier were returning from an escort mission in Greece. Mission completed, the party was boarding the transport when Reaper and Soldier: 76 came face to face for the first time in days. The mission was extended by a week from a Talon attack on the cargo, a shipment of medical supplies to provide relief from a recent attack by a smaller terrorist organization. When they reached the final destination, Reaper had to stay behind, since the media and general public still associated her with Talon. She seemed a little miffed at the inconvenience when Amir told her, but no more than that. Perhaps his first clue that things were about to go wrong was that Reaper's exposed skin was darker when she came back to the transport than when she'd left. And of course, delicate as a hammer, it was Jack who commented. "I thought you were told to stay out of the city, Reaper," she hissed as the assassin boarded the transport. The addressed shrugged her shoulders and nothing else. "Reaper, what the hell were you doing?" She didn't respond again. "How many innocents did you kill?"  
"Hundreds, Jack, because I can't keep my guns to myself. Not unlike you." Rifle trained steadily on the assassin's back, Soldier refused to relent. "What do you expect me to think? You're not exactly someone to trust lightly, if at all." Silence again. 

Reaper (thank God) didn't say a thing until they were back to the current base, having moved bases twice since they originally hired her. This new base of operations was in a secluded area of eastern Russia, snow and tundra extending in all directions. No major weather issues yet, but as the party stepped off the transport, flurries of snow and wind whipped around their bodies in an attempt to tear them into the snowy wastes. "If your ladyship doesn't mind, I'll be taking my leave," Reaper hissed as her boots clomped down the ramp. "You'd better deliver a separate report," was Jack's snide reply, knowing fully well how much Reaper hated the technicality of writing reports. Unlike earlier, when she'd wisely held her tongue, the fiend was ready to whip and snap to and fro with a silver life of its own. "And if I don't, Jackie, what'll you do? Put me on probation? You know just as well as anyone I can leave whenever I damn well please." To this, the white-haired woman huffed, giving the assassin a fairly inconspicuous shove as she passed by. She mistakenly expected Reaper to just submit to the act.

With a low animal-like growl, the assassin slammed her forearm into Jack's temple, sending her stumbling into a snow drift. "Girls, settle down," Amir warned as the ex-soldier picked herself up. He really should've known better. Reaper blew him off with a wave of her hand, rolling her eyes and muttering unintelligibly. It caught her off guard, the fist that Jack hurled to the back of her head. She had to push one booted leg forward to keep herself from falling flat on her face. "Reaper, Jack..." Amir's voice barely cut through the red haze settling in the two ex-soldiers' eyes. "This what you want, _Jackie_?" Her voice was deep, gravelly, challenging. A twist of her neck made a sickening pop, like her neck was being pushed out of place. "Reaper, don't-" She was barreling forward, ready for a wild punch to the vigilante. It was barely blocked, then exchanged with a hard jab to her stomach. Reaper barely registered it. Her life was being spent in constant pain, so what was one more punch?

They swung wildly without caring for the onlookers. Grappling together, the two pushed against one another fruitlessly for several minutes, tossing in the occasional punch or kick to put their opponent off balance. Finally, Jack reared her fist and let it fly. The impact sent Reaper careening backwards, and a repeat of the blow brought her to her knees. Right in front of her was her mask, cracked from the double punch and laying on the ground in front of her. A sudden red flash began to creep into her eyes. Oh no. Jack wasn't going to get out of this without a mark. She wouldn't get out of this _alive_. "Reaper." There wasn't any space in her head for reason. Her talons found the side of the stark white article and fit it back onto her face. "Reaper, no. Reaper. Reaper! _Reaper, no!_ "

No more rules.

A cloud of black smothered Jack immediately. Everyone had seen Reaper's infamous Death Blossom at least once, whether it be in a fight or in one of the innumerable news clips they'd been encouraged to watch of the massacre-creating event. Suddenly, every bystander felt their breathing stop. Any minute now, they expected the horrific barrage of buckshot. Rather than outright killing her with gunfire, though, Reaper took it upon herself to take her notorious ability to a new height, just for Jackie. Her alternative was going to be much more satisfying. Red flashes from beneath her mask were the only signal of her attacks. Each flash of solid mass through the black cloud, in lieu of her usual blasts of buckshot, was another strike to the ex-soldier's body. The assassin was brutal in her assault, assailing the old woman with a barrage of hits on every side. Again and again, Jack was hit with metal-coated swings to every inch of her body. The whole time, she kept her arms up, in front of her, like this was just another street punk trying to do her in.

When the cloud finally drew back to the human form, Reaper extended an arm, heavily swinging it into Jack's chest, dropping her to the snow. The cold instantly began to bite at her underneath the layers she had on. Blood gushed from her nose and coated her teeth, but it was all mercifully hidden by the whole of her visor. The splatters of blood leaked from the loose sides, ruined the perfect whiteness of the snow even as they were covered right back up. Reaper straddled her battered victim's torso, roughly grabbing her jacket on either side. Beneath her mask, she felt her teeth grow, sharpening into needle-like points as they usually did when she fed. Finally, she began to pull. She could see the red pulse of life in the downed soldier travel slowly up her body from where it was nested in the center of her chest. _Yes, yes! Finally, time to rid myself of-_

The click of a hammer being cocked drew Reaper out of her hunger-driven trance. Her eyes drifted up to look down the barrel of an all-too-dangerous revolver. "Let 'er up, Reaper. I ain't afraid of ya, an' I don't got a problem shootin' ya. So either let Jack go...or I'll stick one between yer fuckin' eyes." The red pulse was drifting back down into Jack's body. It'd made it to her throat, but it was now slowly nestling itself back into its place in the center of her chest. Still the gun doesn't move. Slowly, she released Jack's jacket from her tight fists. "Come on, now. Hands up." Black smoke floated out of the openings in her mask, her body's way of trying to say 'fuck off I was trying to eat'. Regardless of her involuntary actions, Reaper let her talons creep up, splaying them wide on either side of her head. "Thank you Jesse," Amir breathed somewhere behind her. "Get Jack to Dr. Ziegler. I'll take care of Reaper."  
"Sure about that, sir? I don' mind none if you wanna haul Jackie over to Doc while I watch ol' Ripper here."  
"...Alright. But be careful. And don't shoot her if you can help it. Difficult as she is, she makes herself useful." 

With some prodding and shoving, Reaper is made to move off of Jack so Amir can get her upright, then help her hobble off to the good doctor. As promised, Jesse keeps her six-shooter trained between Reaper's eyes, ready to pop one through her skull if she twitched the wrong way, even if it wouldn't kill her. Which it wouldn't. She'd tried too many times for any doubt of whether she could truly die. The most that she'd ever gotten was being suspended in an unconscious state for two weeks while her body recovered. A bullet between the eyes wouldn't be any worse. 

Through the swirling eddies of snow, the wind's howling at the missed opportunity for bloodshed, Reaper kneeled, thinking with a gun planted squarely on the forehead of her mask. And she thought. And then...

"When did you go soft, McCree?" 

Something was forming in the back of her head. Great idea it certainly was not, but it would certainly get the cowgirl off her. "Did the Shimada soften you up?" Unfazed, Jesse adjusted her hat on her head, tipping it back a smidge to defy the softening wind as it kicked up little clumps of white here and there. "You ain't gonna get me with'at kinda talk, Reaper."  
"I'm sure you can't help falling for her. I'll admit, she doesn't look bad, given the utter conceit she has hung around her. I could point you in a better direction." One of many tricks Reaper had learned to master from her transformation was mimicking voices. Something about her eternally shifting mass let her copy sounds effortlessly, which let her misdirect anyone foolish enough to let her out of their sight. It happened quite often. 

She'd heard the gruffness of Haruko's voice enough that Reaper was able to mimic it almost perfectly. Her face scrunched up in disgust of making the lewd moans, but it succeeded in some degree. While she remained there, kneeling in the snow like a good merc-at-gunpoint, Jesse was starting to go red in the face from a mix of anger and embarrassment. She hated the flashes in her head of whatever was underneath this mask and cape putting her hands on her Haru. Touching her like that... Thinking of the mere possibility that a no-good, dirty, merciless killer _bitch_ getting close to Jesse's dear Haru... Thank God everyone who'd been watching had either left or followed Amir. The snow falling around them was completely apathetic to her pleas for more, continuing to lazily fall at its own pace around the two. "What's wrong, Jesse? Got a problem with it? It's not my fault she's been begging to get under all this leather, for-" Jesse finally cracked the revolver across Reaper's mask. It still hurt, but the gun was now pointed away from her face. The woman realized her mistake a fraction of a second after Reaper, then rushed to follow the streak of black smoke barreling ahead of her. 

Reaper had figured out the layout of the new base as soon as they'd moved, same as the one before it. First through the main docking bay, down the hall twenty meters, left, then right, then another ten and into the third door on the left. Jesse was close on her tail the whole way, despite moving at speeds that could be considered inhuman. They probably were, for all the twisting and turning she had to do, but Reaper didn't really consider herself human anymore. The bluish lights flickered, making the sterile, military atmosphere quite complete. Reaper slipped her gaseous body through the cracks of the door, leaving Jesse to stand and generally make herself more flustered than was necessary. Dumb kid. The fact that she'd gotten so worked up over something so small was foolish in and of itself. Yet unsurprising...

 

Angel was almost ready to faint by the time he finished patching up his old commander. And 'patch' was no exaggeration. Reaper had done quite a number on the old soldier, even if her enhancements left her relatively unharmed for what she'd endured. "Alright Jack. You're going to be just fine," the medic reassured, giving a little pat to Jack's arm along with his best smile. It was a bit forced, but Jack appreciated the thought anyway. "Of course I'm going to be fine, Ang. I've been fine for decades."

The doctor shook his head, his smile becoming something a bit more natural. "Of course you have been, Jack. Well, the worst you have is some internal bleeding, but I think all of your Captain America should get that out quick." Jack couldn't help a laugh. Angel was always trying to make her feel better with little comments like that, talking like they were still in the Omnic Crisis, just trying to do the world a favor by keeping it safe. Even if she couldn't stand the thought of the old Overwatch anymore, how it'd fallen apart...how _everything_ had fallen apart. "Thanks, Angel. I'll get going." As Jack began to sit up, Angel pushed her right back down onto the sterile medical table. " _No_ , you'll get healing. You're going to stay in here for the night. That fist-fight did a lot to you. Even if the - ah, excuse my wording - the quality of the damage is low, the quantity of it is high. You'll probably be immobile before the night's up. The only reason you're not completely sore now is because of the adrenaline rush and your...you know. Captain America." He snorted, hand coming up to cover his mouth. "I'm telling you, Jack, you would have been perfect for the part in the new film series that started a few years ago."  
"Sure, if they want a Captain that's as ugly in the face as me."

Angel gave her a good-natured shove, settling into a chair nearby to file away his records, per the standard medical procedure. "That's what make-up is for."  
"How about a half-blind Captain America? That wouldn't work."  
"So? There are actors with amputated digits who've performed perfectly well as a character with all their proper phalanges."  
"That's not the same, Angel. You can make fake flesh and whatnot to cover for incomplete fingers. Can't exactly do that for incomplete vision." Angel sighed, shaking his head with mock-annoyance. "You think too little of yourself, Jack. You're a hero to hundreds of people, if not more."

Silence.

Then, "Yeah, but to _thousands_ , I'm the Strike Commander who let Zurich go up in smoke. Who couldn't cut it." The doctor began to chew heartily on his stylus. When he was stressed, he could chew through more pens and styluses than a neurotic dog hyped up on cocaine. As of late, he hadn't been going through many, but now he'd probably be eating his way through a dozen. "Jack, please don't. I know how much you blame yourself for everything. All of it. I can't watch you do this to yourself again. None of this...Overwatch, Talon, Zurich, none of it is your fault." Angel balled his hands into fists, throwing a baleful glare towards the door, as if it could absorb his enmity in that moment. "That monstrosity of the UN asked too much of you. All of you. And then... Ah, there's no word for it that can fit."

Jack laughed again, turning her head to face the enraged medic. "What's this? Angel Ziegler, angry? Someone capture the moment, it only occurs once every forty years." Angel let his anger go in one hearty chortle. It was impossible to stay so upset when Jack was in one of her joking moods. Even if there hadn't been a moment for one in years, Angel still appreciated how the old woman still tried, miraculously making him laugh even when her jokes fell flat and awkward. 

"Of course, Jack. But alas, the moment is gone. I'll leave you to rest. But...should a certain bone-masked assassin feel like bothering you..." Angel pressed an emergency comm into Jack's palm. "It'll be either me or Jesse, guns at ready if need be. I want you to be relatively undisturbed for the next thirty-six hours. I'll be sure to inform everyone else as well. Now do your best to sleep. I'll be back in the morning, if nobody manages to hurt themselves somehow first." A brief, awkwardly delivered embrace, and the medic was gone, leaving Jack alone in the dark with nothing but her own thoughts to attend to. Something about their last moments together seemed condescending, though, on Angel's part. Did he think that she couldn't handle herself should Reaper decide to 'visit'? Maybe he did. Jack forced herself to remain neutral about it, reminding herself that it was Angel's job to keep his patients as comfortable as possible while they recovered.

There'd been a few too many days spent in similar quarters, though not in this base. It'd been hurriedly constructed at the request to the Russian government, who'd begrudgingly obliged only from the insistence of Zarya. When it came to dealing with Russia's policies, Zarya was an absolute godsend, and he was quite the soldier to boot, not only in his body but in his mind, as well.

Somehow her train of thought had Jack remembering fondly - for the first time since God only knew when - days in SEP. Prior to Overwatch, Jack had really been happy. Even in Overwatch's early days, she'd been happy. Bu it all just...fell off. In SEP, it'd been so simple. Get through the injections, survive until the next one, come out as super-soldiers, save the motherfuckin' world. That's how Gabi had worded it, anyway. 

Every god damn time Jack felt herself drift back to SEP, she couldn't help thinking of Gabriel, how she'd seemed like such an utter ass the first time Jack saw her, the way they sort of tolerated each other professionally until the third or fourth set of injections when, without anyone else to turn to because of her abrasive attitude, Gabi showed up at Jack's door, barely able to keep herself upright from the injections. Jack remembered how easy it'd been then to pull her up, into her own bed, leave her with the majority of space, blankets, and pillows while she curled around the shivering, shaking, stubborn body. How that one morning made Jack realize not only how fucking _gay_ she was in general, but how in love she was with this woman whose personality she'd thought she couldn't care less for.

And yet, here she was. Suffering from that one woman who'd almost collapsed outside her door in the middle of the night. There was a name for this kind of thing. Stupid love. Jack wanted to think that it no longer applied to her. That she was no longer in stupid love. Come hell or high water, she wouldn't accept anything but that as her sole truth in life. Even with the jeweled ring that was currently burning a hole in one of her inner pockets, aching to be taken out, looked at, gazed upon, paid attention to. Jack didn't dare move.

That thing in her pocket? It scared her. Scared her to death with Reaper so close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a little while, and I'm sorry for leaving so many loose ends at the end of this chapter, but what better way to keep your audience on their toes after a good old-fashioned battle of fisticuffs!
> 
> That...could have potentially killed somebody. YOU GET THE POINT!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note, there's a good chunk of vivid body horror here, I just...really want to solidify that Reaper isn't very human

Aika was often sharper than most gave her credit for. She knew who Reaper was the very second the fight began in Europe. It was all too familiar, the way she fell behind the line without needing to be told, how the enemies dropped like flies, even the remorseless elimination of a human skull that hadn't quite been finished off.

Did she go to anybody about it?

...None but Haruko. Who didn't understand the gravity of the situation anyway, which Aika wasn't totally certain of whether it was better or worse. She silently watched Reaper toy with McCree with erotic moans and sounds - they disturbed her just as much as they did Jesse - and witnessed the assassin's quick escape, McCree racing behind to keep up with her. That was a quality that Aika always found pleasant about the American. If she told you she'd do something, even if she made an irreversibly monstrous fuck-up in the process, she'd see to that it was done. The cyborg quietly followed them to Reaper's room, where she was currently holed up, McCree doing some sort of nervous fidgeting that one might expect from a cornered animal preparing to fight.

So it didn't really surprise the ninja when McCree jumped out of her skin at the slight "Hello."  
"Hell, Aika, it's just you. Fuck..."  
"Is the woman giving you trouble, McCree?"  
"What, ol' dog in there? Ha, nah, she's just...hard to keep in one place is all."  
"I'd say. Changing to smoke as she can..."

After another moment of silence, McCree cleared her throat, gesturing to the door as she said, rather meekly given her usual attitude, "Would ya mind either tellin' Amari or Morrison? Just let one of 'em know that she ain't outside no more." Aika glanced at the closed door, expression unreadable behind her visor. "Go yourself. I wish to speak to Reaper alone. If you please." McCree was in stunned silence for a moment, but finally shook herself out of it and nodded. "Suit yourself." Before Aika could knock on the door, McCree shouted back at her again. "Watch your back around 'er, cy-girl!"

Shaking her head with a slight chuckle, the ninja lightly knocked on the metal door, not entirely expecting a response. "What is it, Shimada?"  
"I would like to speak with you, Commander Reyes. Privately." A sense of stillness pervaded the empty hallway. Perhaps Reaper was trying to sense if any others were close by; Aika didn't mind her caution, for Reyes had always been the overly-cautious sort. The kind of person that, in old age, would eventually booby-trap their home in well-found paranoia. The door hissed open and the cyborg quickly stepped inside. Just as abruptly as it opened, it closed, with Reaper standing behind it as expected. "How do you know my name?"

Aika made no move to respond immediately, simply took a few precautionary steps away from the renowned killer before facing and addressing her. "You were the commander of Blackwatch. I was one of your top agents, just as Jesse McCree was, even if I did not become quite so close as the two of you."  
"How did you know who I was?"  
"With all due respect, Commander, after so many years of you training me and watching you fight, I don't believe I could mistake you for anyone else." Reaper growled, slamming her fist into the door. "How many others know?"  
"None but my sister, and hesitantly at that. She believes I am mistaken, eager for a replacement of the authority you once gave me."  
"That so..." It was said simply, like it was nothing. The young Shimada knew that revealing this to Reyes in her current state was unwise, but she couldn't help trusting this small thing to her after all this time. 

They stood there, mask against mask, not bothering to say a damn word because nothing needed to be said. Aika never saw her commander as a replacement for the sister who she had lost or mother she had disappointed, but she was important all the same. Commander Reyes had taken her in when she was nothing more than a barely-functional corpse, turned her into the fighter she was. And perhaps, for a time, the delusion of this gruff, abrasive, cynical woman replacing Haruko _had_ crossed her mind, made her into something more than she should have been. Nonetheless, that was all in the past. The present situation was more pressing. "I suppose you would like to know why I wanted to speak with you."

Reaper shrugged, tension having diffused from her body. "Go ahead. I've got nothing better to do but wait for the bloody block of stone to stick my head on."  
"I wished to ask why you never returned. Since you are clearly alive and...some of us saw you otherwise. Myself and Commander Morrison included. I wished to ask why you decided to throw yourself to Talon, who clearly only cared for you for your capabilities and not your person. Why you decided to stray from your path during your time as Blackwatch Commander and hurt those that you did. Why you, the great Commander Reyes, the one so many of us looked up to, degenerated into this despicable _鬼_." Reaper would've liked to laugh. She almost did. But the sight of the cyborg, the harsh words of her accusation growing more and more hard and steely as she spoke, it tugged at her mind. It made her go to a place that she didn't want to go. 

Thank God for the mask. It hid the effort, the pain of pushing away the flood of memories that rushed through her in that moment. "Why, huh? You tell me."  
"Hm?"  
"Since everybody seems so keen on it, why don't you tell me just _why_ I did the things I did. Tell me just _why_ I'm this horrific monster you've conjured up." Aika stiffened, hand drifting to her katana to simply feel the calming presence of her dragon. It was not quite as strong as either of her sister's, but it was still a fierce beast that would protect its master should the need arise. "I cannot tell you these things. It is not my place, Commander. I can only give you thoughts and conjectures, which to you are as good as nothing."  
"At least you got something right..." Despite the bitter tone, the ninja felt herself swell up a little at the cynical praise. "If I have wasted your time, then I apologize. I only wished for answers."  
"You and I both."

This set Aika's head tilting to one side, confused. Both? What could she mean by that? "Commander? What do you mean?"  
"I mean you probably know more about what I did and why than I do. Contrary to what seems to be circulating, I barely know a damn thing about Blackwatch Commander Gabriel Reyes, except that I'm her and I'm the result of an experimental medical procedure gone wrong, courtesy of Doctor Ziegler. If there's something you want to add, do it before someone barges in and gets the wrong idea. Namely your damn sister." Aika hesitated, weighing her words carefully before speaking. When she did, her voice was serious, grave, and above all, truthful. "You were an excellent commander. One of the greatest I can say I have ever seen. You were calm under intense pressure, you were an idol that everyone strove to follow, and you were a great leader in times of need, even if all of our losses and our efforts were never acknowledged. On top of that, you took me and Jesse in when we were nothing but petty criminals and made us into proper soldiers. Perhaps not heroes, for our past mistakes, but you made us determined to set those wrongs to right. For that, I thank you."

Aika bowed deeply, then walked out at a brisk pace. Reaper promptly fled to the bathroom and vomited.

 

"Jack, look at me." The vigilante hesitantly glanced up at her companion, still feeling sluggish from a day and a half in bed. Plus a few hours for Angel to record everything he needed to. "Do you need to go talk to her or not?" Jack shook her head, dropping it into one hand while she sipped at her fifth or sixth (or seventh even) mug of coffee. "Amir, I don't need to do anything with her. She tried to kill me. Why do you insist that we do anything?"  
"Because. You need somebody to be with. It doesn't really matter who, but you've left yourself no other option. I can't do it because you demand that I keep my priorities on Overwatch. Jesse's tried all she can, but you're either too oblivious or too stubborn to accept her. And I doubt anybody else has the time, the patience, or the knowledge of you to do anything about it."  
"I don't need somebody," Jack mumbled bitterly, still blinking away sleep. The old sniper sighed, burying his face in his hands. "I don't understand why you do this, Jack," he muttered. "It doesn't even have to be intimate. All you need is company. Why not Reaper? She knows you fairly well, she understands who and what you are, and granted you're not on the best of terms, but who among us is anymore?" Jack growled, forcing herself to not shatter the ceramic mug in her hand. It took more effort to _not_ break the damn thing than it would have to just do it. 

"Why do I need someone, Amir?"  
"Because you have a problem, Jack. One that you can't fix with a rifle. And you refuse to let anyone else in. Not even me or Angel or Jesse or Aika. To you, we're all enemies. All people trying to make a mad grab at old Jackie before she runs away again." Hard to argue with that.

Her silvery white blanket of hair shifts slightly as she shrugs, falling a bit more comfortable between her shoulder blades. Amir is beginning to look more and more like an angry one-eyed hawk - calm to a point, but slowly reaching the breaking point. "What? I'm not arguing with you. I have a problem, sure, but I can deal with it on-"  
"No you can't, Jack. You never could. And that's not your fault, but you need to realize this." The man put a gloved hand over his old friend's, trying to offer comfort. "Please, Jack. It doesn't matter, if all you do is _talk_ once a week, it'll suffice." Jack exhaled heavily through her nose, back to trying not to break to mug. One more swig emptied it, and she got up for more. "Jack." It was said with a paternal voice, one that Jack remembered hearing often when Amir brought Jack home for babysitting Faree. 

Eye roll. The only indication she did anything was the tilt of her head. "Jack," he repeated, more stiffly. "What do you have in your pocket?" What was he... Oh shit. Jack felt her fingers involuntarily clench around the ring in her pocket. She swore that she wouldn't take it out, but her resolve had crumbled in the last hour in the med bay. "It's nothing."  
"No it's not. How long have you had that ring, now? Fifteen, twenty years?" Jack had to stop herself from correcting him. It was actually twenty-two years. Twenty-three in a month. And two days. "So? Maybe I'm finally going to go pawn it off."  
"Jack. You have kept that ring for twenty years. That ring that cost Gabriel most, if not all her savings, to get just for you. She poured everything she had into you for as long as she could. She has her own demons to fight, but after a while, you became preoccupied with yours. She fell, Jack. And you weren't there to help her back up. What do you expect from her, undying compassion? She's a human, not a dog."  
"Well what does that make me, Amir?"  
"The second victim. Jack, if I could tell you how I feel..." Amir held his head in one hand, palm digging into his forehead like he could dig out the painful memories of watching the two women go from happily engaged to bitter enemies in the span of three months. 

"The only reason you keep that ring, Jack, is because you want her to come back. But you're too scared of yourself. You're too scared of facing these things. You can barely handle her being within ten miles of you at any given time. Don't you think that it should end?" Jack, forgetting entirely about the coffee, fled the room, barely maintaining what little dignity she had left by waiting until she got back to her room to cry. God damn it, Amir was always so good at reading her through the façade, but that didn't mean she wanted him to.

\- - - - - - - -

Two. Whole. Months.

Two whole months without a mission. Two whole months without a feeding. She was starving. And it showed.

She was much quicker to snap at anybody who irritated her. She was much more destructive in the training field, decimating robots into less than scrap before anybody woke up. She stayed in her room longer and longer, to the point that she almost never came out. 

Jack noticed it. She wasn't sure if she liked it or not. Sure, it meant she never saw the woman, which really only succeeded in flooding her with anxiety, but it meant that she was finally getting between the lines. Not sneaking out as several agents had reported, not attempting to hack the building's security mainframe for shits and giggles, and not fucking with anybody unnecessarily. Another thing she noticed quickly was that Aika was with her more often. Most of the crew had opted to stay away from Reaper, either out of fear or respect, but as of late, Aika was continuously with her, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, and on the extremely rare occasion, actually _touching_ Reaper. Just a lightly placed hand on her back, but it was still...touching.

Much as she hated to admit it, Jack felt overly jealous that the cyborg could touch her once-fiancée, in any manner, yet she couldn't. Admittedly she'd probably also lose a hand, unlike Aika.

After another week or two, Reaper just stopped showing up outside of her room entirely. Jack still asked for a security feed and warning if Reaper so much as twitched, but she just...stopped. On the feeds, she was always in her room, fidgeting or sleeping or bathing or drinking (thanks to some 'supply runs' by Aika), but not once did she leave. That wouldn't happen for another three weeks.

Just as it had been instructed, the Athenos program alerted Jack when Reaper woke up the following day. "That is not all, Soldier: 76. She is also dressing in street attire."  
"What? Show me the feed." The holoscreen pulled up, showing exactly what Athenos had told. Reaper was pulling a black hoodie on over dark jeans, though she still had her mask and her heavy boots that were her usual wear. "Would you like me to contain her?" Jack had to think on it for a moment. She didn't want to confront Reaper unless absolutely necessary, so maybe not. Decidedly not. "No. Just tell me if she tries to leave. 

That took all of five minutes. Athenos hummed to life on Jack's handheld comm. "Reaper has left the base." _Damned ghost is trying to go on a murder spree, I'll bet,_ was her bitter train of thought as she set off to leave the base after the assassin. Overwatch had picked up and moved yet again, now based out of the warm of Ethiopia, right outside a big city that had welcomed them warmly.

Jack followed Reaper at a distance, pulse rifle slung over her shoulder should the need arise (or should she feel like shooting Reaper).

Despite how big she was, Gabi looked like little more than an out-and-about teenager sulking through the streets. Being fair, she got that way sometimes, even before. Sometimes it was odd. One day she could be so full of bite that kicking someone's ass was through her head and out in the real world like nobody's business, yet the next she was sulky and inconsolable. Still ready to shove a boot three feet up whoever pissed her off but not quite so happy about it. That's how she looked now, wandering around the slums as if she belonged. In a sense, Jack supposed, she really did. A great hero fallen from her pedestal to the life of a murderer. No purpose other than killing.

The assassin hurriedly turned into a narrow alley, picking up her pace. Instincts kicked in for Soldier. Reaper probably realized she was being followed. Though she didn't want to, Jack waited outside the narrow side street for five minutes before she took another step. When she did, it might've been better to just wait for five more. Reaper was on her knees, barely able to support herself with one arm on the wall, the other hung limply, still clutching her mask in a weak grip. Jack couldn't see her face, but there was an inky, sticky pool of black and red creeping towards her knees. As if it didn't _look_ bad enough, the _smell_ was enough to make a grown man vomit. It strongly reminded Jack of when she found a bloated dead raccoon in an open trashcan after a big rainstorm when she was around fourteen.

This was about ten times worse. It smelled like at least twelve of those, left out in the sun to rot, then stuffed into a dead cow to marinate for twelve hours. It smelled like death. True, unbridled, unrestrained death. Jack had to clap a hand over her face, only to realize her visor was on. Even _through_ the thing, it smelled God awful.

Apparently her movement made more noise than she thought because Reaper half-turned her head, dark laughter filling the empty alley along with inky smoke from the killer's lips. "I'll bet you're grinning like a skull behind that mask right now." If she only knew the truth... Reaper, pulling herself along the wall, straightened up, trying to put her mask back on before anyone could see her face. Before she could properly adjust it, Jack caught a flash of the inky substance clinging to the woman's lower jaw like paint, as if it was put there on purpose. "Go back, Jack. Leave me alone."  
"Not likely," she forced from her throat, still fighting a gag from the stench rolling through the alley. 

"You're outside the base, with nobody else to watch you. So either you go back, or..." With a little effort, Jack leveled her gun to Reaper's chest, ready to let blasts fly the minute she was given cause. The assassin, predictably, was unfazed. "Do me a favor and pull the damned trigger, Morrison."  
"Not unless you give me a reason. Doesn't even have to be a good one, as far as I'm concerned." The woman cocked her head, red-tipped locks shifting as they caught the slight breeze. "A reason? Look at me. I haven't been near a fresh corpse in three months. Put me out of my misery..." 

The old soldier laughed humorlessly, dropping her rifle a fraction of an inch. Nothing would be getting her to trust Reaper entirely, but it was refreshing to hear her beg like that. "What misery? Half the time you practically run the base with your bullshit." Gabriel was mercifully silent for a few moments, then reached up, pulled off her mask, and looked Jack directly in the face. She was a monstrosity. Her face was barely able to be described as human, looking more like loose skin draped across a wire frame. What Jack had initially believed to be the inky black substance was actually just a lack of a lower jaw, revealing pulsating glows of red beneath monster-like sharpened points attached to her pallid, ashy skin. Her eyes were almost non-existent as well, sunken into sockets with nothing but two orbs of red with a pinprick of black in the center to indicate that they were there. Hanging on loosely was her hair, going just as ashy and pale as her skin at the roots while retaining their blood-red tips, though the darker parts were falling out in chunks, barely contained by the hood of the jacket, and in their place was more of the black abyss interrupted by glowing red pulses.

She was an aberration of the highest caliber. When she spoke, her voice was more of an inhuman rasp than ever before, and where her neck met her body, more of the black liquid gushed up. "You like what you see, Jackie? You think I enjoy being the way I am?" Her hand shook as she attempted to put her mask back, but it faded to smoke, letting the cover-up fall to clatter on the concrete below. What could only be described as a noise of distress forced its way out of the woman; Jack couldn't tell what it really was because of how savage her entire visage had become. If the public only knew _this_ side of the infamous Reaper... More people might be running for cover. 

"I don't like this. Jack, I... I hate this _thing_. I hate this _monster_ I've become. I don't fucking want it." Something in her voice was twisting like a knot. It was twisting, making her sound more and more frightened of absolutely nothing. Suddenly screaming, blackness spewing from the convulsing cavity in her throat, Reaper turned and began to kick at a broken down omnic that had died long ago. As she screamed, her boot repeatedly slammed into the metal, causing to first dent, then cave in on itself, then finally destroying it, scattering metal plates and circuitry. Finally, she lets out a guttural roar, slamming her forehead into the wall in front of her. The impact sends black - which Jack now realizes must be Gabriel's blood - splattering across the concrete. 

The assassin is heaving, panting, so tired and yet so ready to kill. But she won't. She isn't strong enough to even materialize her own clothing anymore, and that's what takes the least amount of effort by far, so there's no hope of getting her guns out to kill something. And she's too weak to kill someone with nothing but her bare hands. The only thing that she can do is die. Die in this alley in Africa, with Jack watching her degenerate even further into this monster. 

There's a hand on her shoulder. It's warm. Familiar. Not comforting in the least. "This is what you're resorting to, then? Letting yourself waste away?"  
"I can't die any other way."  
"Come on. You're just going to give your life up like that?"  
"I thought you were more concerned in letting me die," she bitterly reminds the old soldier. Gabriel stands, shaking like crazy because of how badly the need to feed is becoming. She's at the point that she could settle for latching onto Jack and enduring the painful process of consuming her essence over the several hours or even days it would take to do so with her current state. But it's too late for that. "I've tried, Jack. I've tried everything. I've jumped off ten-story buildings. I've thrown myself in front of speeding trains moving over two-hundred kilometers. Jack, I've put my own guns in my mouth, on several different occasions, and pulled the fucking trigger. This is the only way I can...only way I can die." Now it's getting to be too much effort to talk. Her mouth (what's left of it) feels dry and stuffy, and if she had the capacity to care or do so, she might've been crying.

As it was, she possessed neither. Therefore, Reaper stood there, feeling like a complete fool for letting Jack know any of this. For letting her follow all this way, letting her see any of this. "Well come on, then." Soldier: 76 was`twenty feet further down the alley, rifle on her shoulder like back when she'd go into the field in her Strike Commander uniform. Unsure of whether she could speak or not, Reaper caught up to give Jack the most 'What the fuck are you doing?' look she could with half her face being gone. The vigilante countered her with a similar look, then replied, "What? You need a kill. You look pretty incapable of doing the deed yourself. Let's go find a couple lowlifes for you." 

Wet began to spread all over her exposed jaw. It was hard to tell whether it was saliva or more blood, but it was welcome, regardless.

The whole time the two were scouring the dirty back-alleys and slums for the impoverished on the brink of death, Jack thumbed the ring in her pocket. She couldn't help herself. She began to drift back to a better time. A happier time. Perhaps it might provide some kind of consolation for the things she was about to do.

Combing through the city was easy enough, especially in the more run-down spots where the police were almost non-existent. Victims #1 and #2 were actually in the midst of robbing a corner store when the two women spotted them. Reaper pointed, at the point of nearly having to be dragged to keep moving, and Jack gunned them down. The assassin couldn't help but think how much more suited Jackie was to this silvery white that waved over her back than she was to that disgustingly corn-yellow blond hair she used to carry around. She also realized that it wasn't tied back. Just...a silvery white blanket falling over her shoulders.

It actually looked nice. For once in her god damned life, Jack Morrison didn't look like the utter manifestation of 'prim and proper Strike Commander'. All the loose strands just swinging around without being trapped, it made her look less professional and more like she did when Gabriel first met her - a kid that wanted to do something good for the world. Yet, here she was. Dragging two bloody bodies so Reaper could feed. Funny, just how easy it was to distinguish between herself anymore.

Gabriel supposed it was only natural to get used to being two parts. When you have a second person in your head, you had to get used to sharing the same headspace. Mostly literal, given how different Reaper was from her, but figurative as well. Diagnoses had followed her through high school, therapists recommending treatments, Gabriel refusing all of them because she didn't want to be the crazy kid, even into the military. Heavy price to pay for being such a damned idiot. Now Reaper, the overly-cynical, back-talking son of a bitch was ingrained into her person. Like a parasite that's fused with its host to make a monstrous being that can't rightly think for itself unless the damned thing feeds.

Both souls consumed, Reaper's face began to look - marginally - more human. Her skin was beginning to cover her teeth and it looked like her cheeks were coming back, rebuilding themselves. However much it gave Reaper, it wasn't enough. "Think that'll hold you?" Scoffing, Reaper felt around the gaping mass of her throat. "That depends. Getting back to the base? Absolutely. Anything else... Negative." A low growl erupted from the ex-soldier's throat and followed her as she began to slowly pace the alley. Killing petty thieves and criminals like these two wasn't exactly doing the city a disservice but if they did it too much, the law enforcement would notice. Something Overwatch couldn't afford at the moment. Ideas slowly morphed in Jackie's mind, each of them tossed aside like utter garbage. Which they were. Then one came that seemed to make sense.

"How long does the..." 

"Soul?" Reaper offered the little tidbit freely though her voice was hoarse and raspy. "Is that what you call it? Anyway, how long does the soul stay in a dead body?" The assassin shrugged, tilting her head back to lightly tap it against the brick wall behind her, hopefully drawing up some good info. "I've seen them stay around for ten minutes. Thing is, though, by then I've usually consumed them all. So they could last much longer. What did you have in mind?" 

"That would depend. Either we're going to be waltzing into a mortuary or we're going to make a surprise visit to the nearest ER." 

"What's this for?" 

"...Don't ask me that. We lose you when we've invested so much into keeping you around then we're down a set of guns. Talon won't have you, but we won't either. No advantage. And we're back to square one. So get up and help me find something before I have to kill half the city to keep your dumb ass alive."


	6. Chapter 6

Sorry for not having the update you probably want. I'm gonna be rewriting this particular fic. It kinda sucks, yeah, but I think I've got an ACTUAL direction for the story instead of just aimlessly typing out sections of story. I'll be working on it after a while, and I'll post a final chapter to THIS version of the fic with the link for the rewritten version. 'Til then, I hope you guys are satisfied knowing that I have NO intention of letting this stagnate for too long. I've got a LOT of stuff to wrap up before I jumpstart this one again, though, so it may take a while. Not too too much though, don't worry too much.


End file.
